Tobacco Vanille

Every time I'm in Mainpuri, I open baba's cupboard, where he kept his clothes so immaculately that they looked like they'd just come back from the dry cleaner. The cupboard smells of him, even after twelve years of his absence.

An itrafarosh would sometimes come from Kannauj with his peti of itr, and baba would buy a few. Hina for winters. Khus for summers.

It takes me back to the usual afternoon sitting with baba in the verandah in the winters. A balmy winter sun, dadi applying oil to her hair, Jamna Singh reading the newspaper, not exactly newspaper, a single page of it baba had handed him, and on baba's kurta, a warm note of hina mixed with the tobacco he chewed.

The assistant at the counter sprays a strip and hands it to me. I lift it. The tobacco is there, underneath the sweetness, and for a second I'm not in London anymore.

I didn't know then that tobacco would become a fragrance note in French labels, sold in Covent Garden. I doubt baba did either.